A number of years ago, my family and I were sorting through various boxes, following our move to Vancouver Island, BC. I asked my spouse, ‘Know where the telephone directory is?” He responded, “We don’t have one. Not yet’.
Prodded by the perplexed look on my face, he continued: ‘Get this! It’ll take up to two months to receive a directory.’
It would be two months before we’d have a telephone directory delivered to our new home.
“Two months?!!”, I exclaimed. ‘In two months, we’ll have already settled in. How will we locate a new hairstylist? The number for the recycling of our moving boxes and cartons? The extensive range of personal and professional services we need at our fingertips? Don’t fingers do the walking anymore? How will we get acquainted with our new area of residence, without this trusted resource which we’ve always relied upon?’
Now, it was his turn to look perplexed.
So, by this point, I’m scrounging around, scheming all kinds of ways of procuring a telephone directory, right? First, I contemplate calling our local phone centre. Then, I mull over whether to beg for a spare at our local walk-in clinic. Finally, I consider whether to resort to stealing a directory from someplace.
Silly, I know.
But truly, what else could I do but simply LET GO and surrender?
And then, lightning struck! What I realized truly astonished me.
During rampant change, most of us want to cling onto whatever certainties and securities we can hang onto. Our brains have been well-conditioned and wired to do this over millennia.
Well, my brain took one serious LEAP into the great unknown. In fact, it catapulted me right into what I like to think of as a sublime moment of ‘paradigm shape-shifting’.
I realized that what initially sounded preposterous was actually more normal and sane than what most of us have been doing for eons, out of sheer force of habit.
Think about it.
The entire world enjoys the use of the internet, right? At nanosecond speed, at the click of a button, we can access any number, any thing, any one, any where in the world!
So who needs the darn telephone directory, anyway?
Next thing I knew, a cascading range of insights avalanched me. Thoughts of environmental conservation, sustainability and social consciousness courted my mind.
Imagine ALL the trees that would be spared, I now considered, if telephone companies were to grow a social conscience. Imagine if such organizations were authorized to deliver directories exclusively to those who do not use the internet. Imagine what dollars might be saved or invested in humanitarian causes. Imagine how this simple change in mind-set might just save the world.
WOW!!! Just imagine.
Now, imagine if you and I were to think of every ‘problem’ as an ‘opportunity’ in disguise. Just imagine what a happier, richer, more creative and beautiful world this would be!!
Imagine if we could condition our minds to recognize that change is not the enemy but a magnificent portal for our serious consciousness ‘upgrade’, growth and evolution.
Imagine if we could acclimatize ourselves to change by assuming a stance of curiosity, wonderment, awe, play, discovery, opening, expansiveness rather than judgment, condemnation, constriction?
May we, at Healing Works, invite you to remember the gift of wearing such rosy-coloured spectacles. Like the experience I just shared with you, we might just find ourselves feeling way more hopeful, optimistic and even, dare I say it, inspired!
Together, healing happens!